Customers evaluate goods or services in a variety of ways ranging from their satisfaction with products, their perception of the quality of products, their intentions to purchase goods or services on a repeat basis all the way to how likely they will be to speak favorably about the goods or services of a business (Iocabucci p. 247).  Customers go from awareness of a product to a trial run with a product, they then repeat their use of the product if they like it and then if they are truly satisfied, they become loyal customers (Iocabucci p. 247).  To convert a customer from being a one-time purchaser or user of a service all the way down the scale to becoming a loyal customer who purchases over and over again, it is important to properly conceptualize how a customer makes comparisons (Iocabucci p. 247). Customer comparisons consist of juxtaposing experiences with a product coupled with perceived performance of a product compared against expectations about a product.  Expectations about products come from different sources and the comparison between experiences and expectations affects purchasing behavior (Iocabucci p. 248).

There are two basic continua with respect to expectation, one having to do with low to high involvement purchase type and the other continuum is from search to experience to credence characteristics (Iocabucci p. 248-249).  low-involvement purchases do not as often involve a large technical and systematic set of pre thought out and conscious level enumerated expectations.  Low-involvement purchases usually are evaluated on the fly and while being used or experienced.  A customer might have things they think about with respect to low-involvement purchases, but they are just not as surface level and stay out of the consciousness until product use occurs (Iocabucci p. 248).  High-involvement purchases on the other end of the spectrum usually are evaluated with a group of more consciously and systematically enumerated expectations (Iocabucci p. 249).  So consequently low-involvement purchases usually involve more search to experience end of the spectrum considerations while high-involvement purchases usually involve more experience to credence end of the spectrum considerations because search has delineated criteria that are easy to look for, experience takes some time and credence is required when a service or product is too complex for just one person to evaluate  (Iocabucci p. 249).

There are four basic sources of expectations in the context of comparing expectations with experience and they are: personal, a friend, third party and marketing communications (Iocabucci p. 249).  We obviously are each our own source of our expectations when we have direct experience with a product be it a service or a good, and we have a whole set of things we have thought about from other experiences (indirect experiences of the same or similar products elsewhere) and from our searches for information that we bring into the direct experience and these thoughts makeup our expectations  (Iocabucci p. 249).  The advice of a friend and third-party information are similar though if advice comes from a friend, it is likely that a consumer is able to give it a higher and more useful level of contextuality than from a third-party which is maybe, however, more credible on a professional level, so both types of expectations must be given their weight and place inside of the calculus of a consumer  (Iocabucci p. 249).

Marketing communications as a source of expectation is what we all seek as marketers to understand more thoroughly.  An online article by Insider Studio gives some more concrete examples and specific issues relating to this idea  (Insider Studio, Online Article).  71% of shoppers actually expect personalized interactions from brands, and 76% feel frustrated when communications are not personalized (Insider Studio, Online Article).  Personalized marketing strategies in email can significantly enhance customer retention and foster brand loyalty (Insider Studio, Online Article).  Modern tools make personalization at scale possible for small businesses, small to medium enterprises, and larger sized businesses (Insider Studio, Online Article).  Understanding the significance of marketing communications as a source of expectation can help business marketers be self-analytical with respect to the effectiveness of personalized messaging and messaging in general, thus creating a space for imagination of possibilities in the mind of the potential customer which the products we market then satisfies when they use it (Iocabucci p. 250).  This is the best outcome, when a customer’s experience surpasses their expectations (Iocabucci p. 248) and this is done by knowing our market segment target demographic’s general past experiences and largely being familiar with what types of other reading and research they do about our product type.  Marketers have to make claims about where the product they are marketing stacks up in comparison with the rest of the pack, they have suggest quality in the minds of people based on the price point, they have to build a sense of quality based on the degree of exclusivity of distribution channels, and they have to make an effective way for salespeople to describe the way the product performs, all in order to build a proper expectation for the product experience to satisfy (Iocabucci p. 250).

Mapping out consumer behavior is a requirement for businesses to be able to develop marketing strategies that effectively produce results.  Coming to a level of understanding of these behaviors always provides business marketers the necessary insights into the way consumers make purchasing decisions and the way these choices are influenced by these behaviors.  Knowledge of consumer behavior, once analyzed to the point of knowing how consumers make purchasing decisions allows marketers to lead consumers through a decision-making process where the marketers can show consumers a need that they have and can recognize, marketers can then show consumers information that they automatically feel is the next step and therefore themselves have gathered, consumers then naturally can evaluate options with comparisons given by marketers, which then leads to the choice to purchase and subsequently to a post-purchase evaluation.  Personal influences like age, lifestyle and values are important anchor points that influence the behavior of consumer.  The same is true of social influences like family and peer groups, and psychological factors such as motivation and perception.  To segment a target audience, position products properly so as to be recognized by consumers as meeting specific needs, to design marketing communications that are sufficiently persuasive and to establish pricing strategies that strike consumers as fitting, marketers must apply consumer behavior theory to their knowledge of the segment target.  Marketers can increase the satisfaction of their customers, create and foster lifelong loyalty and drive repeat purchases by understanding and incorporating analysis of these dynamics into their marketing (Easy Marketing School, YouTube).

When customers experience products in the evaluation stage, they are evaluating the core of the products like performance, reliability, facilities, employees etc. and some of the peripheral supplemental components like service aspects that the business provides relating to the products (Iocabucci p. 251). Core components and supplemental components have an effect on the customer satisfaction continuum in different ways (Iocabucci p. 251).  The most interesting difference is the fact that when the core product that a customer experiences is good and meets their expectations, it does not much increase the satisfaction level of the customer because it was supposed to be good and it’s being good has to do with the product solving the basic problem it was designed to solve, but if it is bad and does not meet expectations, the customer experiences a greater degree of dissatisfaction (Iocabucci p. 251).  The peripheries are important as well as far as customer service and technology support all add to satisfaction and can diminish the satisfaction a customer has with a good core product (Iocabucci p. 251).  Customers are usually really not all that hard to please and operate on the wavelength of reasonability like everybody else and have a zone of tolerance range which is the wiggle room between low and acceptable levels of satisfaction slightly below ideal (Iocabucci p. 251).  The key is to make a reliable core product that follows simple tangible cues like appearance and proper pricing and operate with proper quality of corollary service to the product such as be responsive, customize thing, demonstrate competence and show empathy (Iocabucci p. 252).

Customers undergo a journey of sorts from the first time they become aware of a brand until the time when they develop brand loyalty.  This requires a nuanced approach on the part of business marketers with respect to understanding the way customer expectations shape and inform their purchasing behaviors.  By taking factors like involvement level with the use of a product and different sources and types of expectations, businesses can better understand, meet and aim at exceeding customer expectations.  This has proved over and over again to be how businesses foster satisfaction and create loyalty leading to lifelong customers.  High-involvement purchases involve more deliberate and information-driven evaluations on the part of the customer while low-involvement purchases are most of the time spontaneous and influenced by the way a purchaser feels on-the-spot.  Customer expectations are critically shaped and molded by the targeted messaging that marketers produce to the degree that the messaging aligns with the needs and past experiences of the consumer.  By delivering a reliable core product using high level service standards and procedures, businesses can elevate customer satisfaction and create long-term loyalty.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Iacobucci (2022). Marketing Management (6th ed., pp. 247-251). Cengage.

Insider Studio (2023, March 27).  The era of generic email blasts is over. Here’s why customers expect personalized messaging and how to meet that expectation. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/why-customers-expect-personalized-messaging-and-how-to-meet-that-expectation

Easy Marketing School. (2024, May 3). Consumer Behavior Theory and Marketing Strategy [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/IgJN6e7aY1o?si=g_9qYXvQeRYzzZi_